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The Facilitator Cards Blog
Welcome! Here you will find posts about Facilitation & Training Resources, Using Facilitator Cards (how-tos, theory, sequences, etc.), and About the Cards themselves (how they're made, how they came to be, expansions and updates, etc.).
Zoom Series: Improve Recordings with These Five Tips!
Simple practices that guarantee sessions will be captured in their best light.
Zoom Series: Set a “No Late Arrivals” Policy
Improve session morale with this one simple step!
Zoom Series: The Power of Solo Break Out Rooms
New possibilities for virtual workshops & meetings await!
April Monthly Mailer from Facilitator Cards
Upcoming events, a super cool kickstarter, and all the icebreakers you'll ever need!
April Card of the Month: Thinking & Feeling
We *think* this card is great and we *feel* like it adds depth to any agenda!
Zoom Series: How to Avoid Drop-Off in Breakout Rooms 📉
Improving break out rooms, one activity framework at a time.
Zoom Series: How to use Breakout Rooms like a Pro
Vary the group size to increase the dynamic of any meeting, workshop, or session!
Zoom Series: How to Make Digital Handouts Easy 💯
Sending a Google Doc link to participants? Try this!
Zoom Series: Three Unique Ways to use the Zoom Chat 💬
Storm the chat, DM with ease, and get the chat log rolling!
Zoom Series: Why Get Better at Zoom?
Virtual workshops, sessions, and meetings are here to stay. We're here to help make them better.
March Monthly Mailer from Facilitator Cards
Events! Improvements to Zoom Sessions! & More!
How To Answer Questions
There's an art to giving a great answer.
March Card Of The Month: Anonymous Q&A
Get the questions people really want answers to.
February Card Of The Month: Minute Papers
Never underestimate the power of a one-minute pause!
February Monthly Mailer from Facilitator Cards
Tips for in-person and virtual workshops, early bird access to events, and one of our favorite facilitation products!
January Card Of The Month: 100 Ideas
Audacious Goals x Brainstorming = Interesting Results!
January Monthly Mailer from Facilitator Cards
Upcoming events, icebreaker prompts, and more!
December Monthly Mailer from Facilitator Cards
Our final event of the year, pro tips, and anything you might have missed!
December Card Of The Month: 10/10/10 Analysis 💯
How to facilitate it, why & when we use it, plus prompt examples!
Three Ways To Improve Your Brainstorms
Making a list? Try these frameworks to expand your results!
🌤 November Monthly Mailer from Facilitator Cards
Events coming up, zoom tips & tricks, and more!
November Card Of The Month: Fishbowl 🐠🥣
Having lots of small OR large group chats? Find out why Fishbowl's are a great way to run discussions & debriefs!
October Card Of The Month: Spectrum Questions
Why we love adding it to our agendas, how to use it online, plus examples and prompts!
👻 Facilitator Cards October Monthly Mailer
Events, trainings & everything you may have missed from September!
Our Favorite Icebreakers
No more sharing "fun facts", try these frameworks for fast, fun, and effective icebreakers!
September Card Of The Month: Opposite Thinking 🔁🤔
Learn all about Opposite Thinking and why it's one of our favorite processes!
🥞 The September Monthly Mailer
What's coming up in September, highlights of August, zoom tips, and more!
Card Of The Month: Hot Seat 🔥🪑
Hot Seat's in the hot seat!
August Monthly Mailer
All of our upcoming events in August, plus anything you might have missed from July!
July Monthly Mailer
Recapping what we got up to in June and what's in store for July! 🎵July, July, Juuuullllyyyy
🕶 June Monthly Mailer
Everything that happened in May + what's coming up in June!
May Monthly Mailer from Facilitator Cards
All of our upcoming events, plus anything you might have missed from the previous month!
The Power of Analogies
How looking differently can help you see something more clearly
☀️ April Monthly Mailer from Facilitator Cards
All of our upcoming events, plus anything you might have missed from the previous month!
How to Come Up With 100 Ideas
Brainstorming for quantity over quality
The Facilitator Cards Monthly Mailer - March 2022
All of our upcoming events, plus anything you might have missed from the previous month!
The Deal Me In Scholarship Fund
Announcing Our Fund to Support Under-Resourced Educators
21 Things That Made Our 2021
Connection, community, and relocating clear across the country, we made some big moves in 2021.
The Facilitator Cards Gift Guide for Facilitator Gear
Recommendations for all the Facilitators in your life (or yourself, we won't judge!)
The Facilitator Cards Gift Guide for Tech & Software
Recommendations for all the Facilitators in your life (or yourself, we won't judge!)
The Facilitator Cards Gift Guide for Facilitator Books
Recommendations for all the Facilitators in your life (or yourself, we won't judge!)
How to Reduce Your Triggers using Facilitator Cards
Triggers are tricky as a facilitator, let's make it easier.
Join our November Brain Jam: Navigating Triggers as a Facilitator
Come learn how we can get through those tricky moments as facilitators.
Facilitator Cards x Airtable Virtual Agenda Builder
Don’t have your cards with you but still want to make an agenda on the fly? We got you.
Come Join the August Brain Jam: Airtable for Facilitators
Make beautiful RSVPs, super-powered resource lists, and customizable feedback forms with Airtable
More Trees & Happier Bees: Offsetting Our Environmental Impact
How we ensure that Facilitator Cards are better than carbon neutral—and how you can do that too!
How to Prep for an Emergent Facilitation
Four key ways to prepare for the unknowable in your next workshop, meeting, or gathering.
July Brain Jam: Facilitator Potluck & Playground
Bring something you’ve done, something you’ve learned from, or something you want to try out and share with other facilitation geeks!
What's New on the Virtual Facilitator Guide: Spring 2021
New Zoom activities live on the Virtual Facilitator Guide to mix up your next online gathering
Using Stream Deck for Zoom Facilitation: Learnings from the Brain Jam
How Stream Deck can be a co-facilitator app and tips on how to use Stream Deck as a virtual facilitator.
Join our June Brain Jam: Emergent & Responsive Facilitation
How can we facilitate on-the-fly, respond to the true needs of our group, and use Facilitator Cards to make it all easier.
How to Write On, Clean Off, and Reuse Your Facilitator Cards
Answers to a few Card Carrier questions from our first Card Sharks session.
Join Our May Brain Jam: Using Stream Deck for Virtual Facilitation
Explore a simple-yet-powerful app to smoothly manage any technology you’re using in your workshops and training.
Getting Started with OBS: A short guide for facilitators
Guiding you from downloading OBS, to building your first scenes, to using it in your next facilitation.
Facilitator Cards Brain Jam: Using OBS for Virtual Facilitation
Can one piece of software eliminate 90% of our tech headaches for free?
Using Gather for Virtual Facilitation: Canning the Brain Jam
How sharing a virtual world can help us get closer to in-person facilitating than we initially thought possible.
March Brain Jam: Virtual Breakout Room Best Practices
Breakout rooms are a go-to feature for facilitators nowadays, so what do we need to do to make the most of them?
Facilitator Brain Jam: Using Gather for Virtual Facilitation
Have you ever explored how you might use a proximity-based video-conferencing platform in your workshops?
How to Review Your Facilitator Game Tape
Why watching yourself facilitate can help you improve everything
Declaring Winter Break on the Virtual Facilitation Guide
We hear you on the "I'm not putting anything on my calendar until 2021" vibe. Let's get back into it in January.
Virtual Facilitation Agenda: Four Activities from Minute Papers to 10/10/10 Analysis
A stack of cards for facilitating deep introspection, dialogue, and coaching participants to make a decision that will stand up to the test of time — all on Zoom.
Virtual Facilitation Agenda: Four Activities from Strike a Pose to Dot Voting
A stack of cards you can use for an engaging Zoom meeting that surfaces emotions, ideas, clarifies those ideas, and finally lands on a collective decision.
Using AhaSlides for Virtual Facilitation: Canning the Brain Jam
What roles can live polling software play in a Zoom meeting? Turns out, a bunch!
RSVP for our Facilitator Brain Jam: Using AhaSlides for Virtual Facilitation
Join us as we crowdsource creative ways to use live polling to enhance Zoom meetings.
Using MURAL for Virtual Facilitation: Canning the Brain Jam
We surfaced dozens of facilitator challenges we're facing, and wise-crowds-ed solutions.
Join Our First Facilitator Brain Jam: Using Mural for Virtual Facilitation
We're bringing facilitators together to explore new digital tools and crowdsource creative ways to use these tools in our facilitation.
Modifying In-Person Activities for Virtual Facilitation
From the digital tools you'll need, to the questions to ask yourself as you're rewriting your agendas, here's a great place to start if you're transitioning from physical rooms to Zoom.
Facilitating On-Camera: A Jumpstart into Video-Based Facilitation
Are you struggling for ways to connect groups during the pandemic? Don’t know your Zooms from your Hangouts? Have you never before considered the roles of lighting or microphones in your work?
Why Are These So Expensive?
A response to a comment on our Kickstarter, and explanation of what went into the price of the Facilitator Cards.
How to Facilitate Magnet Statements
A preview chapter from the Facilitator Cards Facilitation Guide
My Essential (Tiny) Facilitator Kit
The items that always make my facilitation packing list
Why I See Facilitation as Essential to Living Social Justice
There are lots of ways we can engage groups in learning. This one just happens to be inherently equitable and just.
Get Un-Stuck in Your Facilitation Planning
5 Strategies to help when you’re drawing a blank and wondering if you’ll ever have a creative idea again.
Facilitation Sequence: Magnet Statements + 5 Whys
A pairing of activities to help you better understand your group, help them understand each other, and to dig into what is bubbling under the surface.
Adding Modularity to Your Facilitation Planning
One small change you can make for big creativity & flexibility.
My Go-To Facilitation Rider
After years of back-and-forths, these are the facilitator supplies I ask every client to provide for maximum flexibility.
12 Free Facilitation Tools to Boost Your Creativity
For your convenience: Meet the Facilitator Cards Preview Pack
How to Pick the Right Activity: Ask yourself what it's for
Group size and energy levels matter, of course, but those need to come second to this.
Goodbye Dry Erase. Hello Wet Erase.
We planned for the cards to be dry erase. After testing our prototype, we realized how bad of a plan that was.
Changing the Game
How I gradually made my facilitations more about my participants than my plan.
The Questions We Asked Every Potential Manufacturer
We're trying to make and ship a physical product that's high quality, ethical, and sustainable.
Intro to the Facilitator Cards Blog
Let's start with a little housekeeping: framing the blog, instructions for where to find things, and our intended outcomes.